


Childhood Bedroom

by Jaybeefoxy



Series: Flufftober Prompts 2020 [23]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Flufftober, Flufftober prompts 2020, M/M, Mystrade fluff, mystrade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:55:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27169633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaybeefoxy/pseuds/Jaybeefoxy
Summary: Greg is clearing out his mum's house.
Relationships: Mycroft Holmes/Greg Lestrade
Series: Flufftober Prompts 2020 [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950532
Comments: 4
Kudos: 68





	Childhood Bedroom

**Author's Note:**

> This is a bit angsty as well.

Greg walked sadly through the house he had called home for so long. It seemed lifeless, somehow. His mum had passed away little over a week ago, and although he had been expecting it, he still felt grey with grief. Although they had never been really close, she had still been his mum, and this house had been home. He had spent the last few days doing his best to clear it and pack stuff up, ready for the house clearance people to shift. He had kept a few things, things he recalled from his youth, but apart from his grandparents’ clock and a gate-leg table with barley-sugar twist legs, there wasn’t a lot that he wanted. There were loads of photos, which he simply tipped into a box to sort later, and plenty of books, some of which would go into their library at home. He had sorted the things his sisters wanted, and boxed them to send on by courier, but since they both lived in different cities now, neither had been able to get to visit the house themselves and Greg had volunteered to do the bulk of the sort-out and deal with the solicitor himself. 

Mycroft found him on the landing, standing in the doorway of one of the rooms. 

“The boxes are in the car,” he said, sliding an arm around Greg’s waist. “We can arrange for the pieces of furniture to be collected next week. Are you quite alright?”

“This was my bedroom,” Greg said, simply. “Lots of memories from this room…All seems a bit...unreal, somehow.” 

“I understand. Life carries on regardless, but somehow, after a death, one does not want to progress with it. It feels like we want to have everything stop for a time, to catch up, to acknowledge our loss.”

“Yup, and it never does. You can’t stop it. Life is for living, after all, even if you feel like you can’t for a while.” 

“Someone once described grief to me like a box with a ball in it, and a bell for the ball to hit. When grief is fresh, the ball is huge, always hitting the bell because it has no room to move. Over time, the ball shrinks, or the box gets larger. Regardless there is more space between bouts of grief, and the bell is hit, but not as often. Somehow, sometime, you realise that the ball is small, and rarely hits the bell, but it still can, randomly, for no good reason, and grief is fresh again.”

“A very good analogy.” 

“I thought so.” 

Greg sighed. “I was a bit of a difficult kid, all things considered. Mum was caring for grandad, and she never seemed to have a lot of time and energy left for me and my sister. She always seemed distant and tired. Think I can’t have made it easy sometimes. The stuff I got up to…” He shook his head, ruefully. 

“You’ll have to share some of your memories with me sometime.”

He followed Greg into the room, and watched as Greg gravitated to the window. It looked down on the surprisingly substantial back garden. “Didn’t look like this when I was younger, of course,” Greg explained, casting his eyes around the room. “When I left mum redecorated and made it into the spare room. Used to have posters of Queen and David Essex all over the walls.” 

“They were your favourites?”

“Yeah. Fancied myself as a bit of a rock star when I was fourteen. Garden looks very different now too.” They gazed out of the window, and Mycroft saw lawn and ragged flower beds and unkempt hedges. “My dad was a great gardener,” Greg explained. “After he died it went to seed and mum had trouble keeping it going. It’s a bit of a tangle now but I paid for a gardener to come once a month and keep it tidy for her.”

“It’s a long garden,” Mycroft observed. 

“Yeah, this house, it was my grandparents’ place. Mum inherited it after they passed. My grandad was a really good gardener. He lived through World War Two, and spent his time digging for victory. Had a reserve occupation at a local factory, making planes. He was a machinist in the metal shop. Gardening was his outlet, I guess. He and my dad bonded over gardening. They would discuss growing stuff for ages.”

“We had a gardener at Musgrave. Although mummy does enjoy her roses now.”

“I was born in this bedroom apparently. My mum and dad were living here after they got married, before they got their first house, and mum had me at home, here.”

“So you took your first look at the world in this room, and you grew up here too?”

“Yeah, for part of it at least. I was only 12 when Grandma died, and then we moved in and looked after Grandad. Mum and dad had the front bedroom, I had this one and my little sis, Julie, had the smaller one. My older sis, Charlie, she was a lot older than us, she’d already left for teacher training college when I was born, so she didn’t need a room when we moved here. Grandad used to live in the front room. Dad fixed it up like a flat and mum looked after him while Dad went to work.“

“Life cannot have been easy, all of you together in one space.”

“Oh, we got along, and what with Grandad’s pension, and dad’s wages, mum got benefits as his carer, and we did okay. I got myself a delivery round with the corner shop, early starts but it gave me some of my own cash, and I could contribute. Plus Mr Riggs always gave me out-of-date bread and such, which helped.”

“Enterprising,” Mycroft said.

“Mum was their only child, so she inherited the place anyway when Grandad died. I always loved this house. Myc, I’m not sure I can bear to sell it…”

“Do you have to?” 

“I...well, Julie and Charlie will probably want a cut. Technically we all get a three way split of whatever money is there, and the house is part of it.”

“You may get more by renting it out? It is in a prime location.”

“That’s why they may want to sell.”

“Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. It is a nice house. Could do with updating a little, new wallpaper, a coat of paint perhaps, but beyond that, it is still in decent condition. It could be a good source of income.” Mycroft privately promised himself that he would see that Greg kept the property, for whatever he wished to do with it. 

“Ah, it’s only bricks,” Greg burst out. “A home is made by the people in it, not the shell.”

“And yet, the shell holds memories.” Mycroft smiled. 

“Always hoped to pass something on to my own kids. There’s Julie and Charlie both with their own...Christ, Charlie’s a grandma now. Me, I never even had one.”

“Does that bother you?”

“Kind of, sometimes. Never thought it did, but lately...I dunno.”

Mycroft sucked in a breath. “You know, Gregory, I had meant to chat about this to you sooner…”

“What?”

“The possibility of adoption. A child in our lives. Since Rosie made her appearance, I have wondered…”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.” 

Greg regarded his husband in surprise. “In that case, I think we have a lot to discuss.”

Mycroft looked around, trying to imagine a younger Greg dashing about in this space, dark brown hair askew, brown eyes dancing, all breathless cheek and youthful energy. He found the image attractive, but he rather preferred the version he had right now; sparkling brown eyes, silvering hair, a heavy strength to his body, and life experience. He would make a wonderful father. A man he loved, and who loved him in return, with abundant love to give. “Perhaps,” he said, softly, “we might start thinking about which room would make a suitable **childhood bedroom** in our own house?” 


End file.
